


ghosts invited

by mittagsfrau



Series: Hydra Husbands AUs [6]
Category: Captain America (Movies), Desolate (2018), Marvel Cinematic Universe, Stephanie (2017)
Genre: Boys Kissing, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Past Character Death, Post-Apocalypse, Romance, hydra husbands AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-14
Packaged: 2021-03-18 20:40:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28749387
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mittagsfrau/pseuds/mittagsfrau
Summary: Van tries to make a living in this post-apocalyptic world left in ruins after a strange psychic disease fell upon the children of mankind and gave them the powers to destroy all civilization. The rules have changed. The barrier between here and the abyss is brittle. One has to be careful because nothing is like it was before and never will be again.
Relationships: Jack Rollins/Brock Rumlow, Van (Desolate 2018)/Eric (Stephanie 2017)
Series: Hydra Husbands AUs [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1871758
Comments: 4
Kudos: 6





	ghosts invited

Out there in a distance  
Faces the light  
And the growing mountain  
Through clouds  
Harvesting hope and dreams  
A grey shade appears:  
Disbelief

("Ghosts invited" by _Gaahls Wyrd_ )

There’s a tale and it goes like this. Sometimes in the small hours of the night he will appear. He’s always wearing a black long sleeved shirt and dark jeans. There’s a cut on his right brow that has been tended to. He will walk up to your house arms spread, indicating that he means no harm.

You will go there and talk to him. He will show you a picture and you will look at it. “I’m looking for my little girl”, he will say. “Her name is Stephanie.” The picture will be faded beyond recognition. You will tell him, that you haven’t seen her, truthfully. He will nod and thank you before he walks away into the darkness again.

This is how it works. This is how it is since the invaders from that other dimension left. He’s searching for his daughter ever since.

He will come to you, too. Under a new moon, when the nights are darkest, he will be there and you will do exactly as it is said and everything will be fine.

You will know it’s him, this nameless stranger, because he won’t blink, no breeze can ruffle his hair that will forever stay black. He will carry a stuffed tortoise under his arm and when he turns away you will see how he died. Someone sliced his back open from tailbone to neck.

When he leaves his grief and hope will linger in your heart until dawn breaks.

That’s the tale and you thought you were prepared but what it omitted is that he’s beautiful, too beautiful to be real. That his worry is so sincere and heart wrenching and that he looks so tired and lost.

So you do what you shouldn’t have done. You don’t look at the faded photograph in faked concentration and you don’t shake your head sadly. You don’t watch him walk away, head bowed and weary until he blends into the darkness that spat him out to begin with.

You say:

“I didn’t see her but please stay a while. You look tired and hungry. I have some leftover stew and I could use some company.”

You didn’t know what to expect but he looks into your eyes, his are darker than the darkness, deep in their sockets, hidden in the shadows carved into his face. He nods and you lead him into your house, pull a chair out from your kitchen table and serve him a bowl of lukewarm stew.

He eats silently, bowed over the your meagre offering and thanks you. The bowl stays as full as it was to begin with as you had placed it on the table before him.

“Stay”, you tell him. “Stay the night. It’s cold outside and the sun won’t rise for hours.”

He takes that invitation, too.

Now he rests in your arms, in your bed, becoming more solid with every passing minute and by now you can tangle your fingers in his hair and it feels stiff with dried blood and whatever product he put in it years ago. He grows warmer and you’re sure he’s actually breathing now.

You hold him tighter and hope dawn won’t take him from you.

Van wakes to an empty bed and is about to file away last night’s events as a dream. He pads barefoot into his kitchen as his gaze falls to something on the floor. The visitor’s shoes. He looks up and still can see him through the window. He has his back turned and Van can see a neat scar bisecting the olive skin of his back, displayed by the parted fabric of his shirt. Van runs out of the front door and comes to a halt next to him.

In the weak and pale early morning light filtered by fog the man’s eyes look green. He’s barefoot in the dewy grass and seems confused. He looks at the stuffed tortoise in his hands. “I have to find her”, he whispers and Van puts a hand on his shoulder, finding it solid and made of flesh and bone.

“Did one of the monsters take her?”, Van asks and the stranger nods. There are pillow creases on his cheek and his eyes are red rimmed.

“Then you know that she is lost. Come back inside. I’ll make breakfast for us and you can tell me everything.”

Van takes the man by the elbow and he lets himself be steered back into the house.

Van makes omelets and the man, who introduces himself as Eric tells him the whole story. How his daughter fell prey to them around Halloween in 2016. How she killed her brother. How she threw her own parents out of their house and how Eric and his wife returned weeks later and found her alive.

Van listens and watches Eric hug the stuffed animal to his chest. “His name is Francis. She loved him and now she’s out there without him.”

“Eat”, Van tells him and he does.

“Your feet are cold and blistered”, Van says as they are sprawled on the couch afterwards and Van attempts to massage feeling back into those icy appendages. It’s April and the mornings are still chilly. “Stay here with me. It’s not easy all alone out there. It’s not easy here all alone. Mankind is decimated and there’s not much of an infrastructure left. I have chickens, a garden and some fruit trees. My neighbors trade with me for grains and other things. Together we could make a halfway decent living. What do you say?”

“Okay”, Eric replies with a wry smile. “I’ve seen your ramshackle chicken coop. You really need my help.”

“I was a mechanic. I’m not good with wood and building stuff”, Van admits and Eric nods. “I’m gonna build a decent chicken coop before I leave.”

Eric stays true to his words and builds a chicken coop that looks nicer and fancier than Van’s house. Two stories, a tower for the rooster, all bricks and more solid than the actual house. All built with hand tools and foraged materials from a construction site in the abandoned town a few miles west of Van’s house. Van is impressed and Eric is proud of his work.

He needs a project or he will grow restless and will try to wander off again, fading into the abyss where he had lingered all those years, so Van keeps him busy.

They install solar panels on the roof of Van’s house next and to have hot water and electricity. Not much but it’s good, feels like hope and like things can get better.

Eric looks good in Van’s clothes that are a little too big on him. Van organizes some more fitting things from the abandoned mall and by trading eggs and produce.

Eric still sleeps next to him in his bed and tends to drift closer during the nights until he finds his spot in Van’s arms, head tucked under Van’s chin. They fit together perfectly.

They build a greenhouse together to maximize Van’s attempts of growing crops. It’s taking them all summer.

As the autumn winds grow cold and Van has finished knitting Eric a sweater made from soft black alpaca wool, Halloween comes closer and Eric grows more distant.

Usually he’s far more expressive and talkative than Van but now he sits by the fireplace in the evenings and broods, Francis next to him.

Van is afraid he will lose Eric again, that the shadows that grow denser every day and writhe on the walls around him will swallow Eric and leave Van desolate.

Van walks over and kneels before him, taking Eric’s cold hands in his.

Then he says all the things that went unspoken all summer and now need to be out in the open.

“Stay. I need you. I can’t do this without you.”

Eric’s eyes are dark and shadowed. The invaders are gone but they have left something behind. A lingering wound on the barrier between their world and this one. Darkness seeps out of Eric’s pupils, taking over the hazel of his irises. He’s almost lost.

As a desperate measure Van tells him what he locked away in his heart: “I love you” and kisses him.

Eric’s lips are cold but warm under Van’s. In the end Eric holds on to him with bruising strength and the shadows flee.


End file.
